Something to Remember Me By
by Zubata821
Summary: A short oneshot JavaJunkie fic. Luke owns 264 baseball caps. And each one holds memories.


Disclaimer: I do not own, I only worship.

Author's note: I was watching Forgiveness and Stuff and remembered how much I love that episode. I got to thinking why does Luke always wear a baseball cap? I also realized that my brother wears caps all of the time. And he owns a ton of them. He has a cap from my college that he only wears when he wants it to rain. Baseball caps mean things to people. I just wanted a short little one shot to explore this aspect of Luke.

Something to Remember Me By

I own 264 baseball caps. I had almost 100 by the time she came into my life, the day she walked into my diner. I cannot remember a day where I didn't wear a baseball cap on my head for at least part of the day. I used to get detention because I wouldn't take a hat off of my head. I started collecting when I was just a kid. Every birthday my mom would give me a hat and even when they were dirty and worn through, she wouldn't throw them away, she would hang them up in my room and I would be surrounded by the memories of climbing trees, playing in the park, getting into fights, just being a boy. When she died I put my first ever cap in her coffin. When she found out that she was pregnant s had a feeling that I would be a boy and had bought the cap at a store. I wanted her to have a fitting tribute. I wanted her to have something to remember me by.

My dad and I were always sports fans, and we would travel to baseball games whenever we could. He would buy me a cap as a souvenir. I have 5 Yankee caps, and 8 for the Red Sox. Once my sister got invited on a vacation with her best friend, and my dad actually closed the store for over a week and made it all the way to California and back stopping only for food, sleep and baseball. Those caps are filled with the memories of trying to catch a foul ball, eating hot dogs, and just talking sports with my dad, my hero. I played Little League and on my high school team, most of those caps don't even fit me anymore, but I would never get rid of them. These are filled with the memories of pitching a perfect game, scoring the game winning homerun, the two years I was named MVP on my varsity team, and the last game I ever played that my dad saw. When my dad got sick and I decided not to go to college, I went through a phase where I bought hats from colleges. Near or far away, I spent a lot of my savings trying to capture those experiences that I would never have, and places I would never go. When my dad died I placed a Stars Hollow High cap next to his musket, something to remember me by.

After that I changed the hardware store into a diner. I sold my parents house and rented a storage unit. 90 baseball caps went into that unit. I didn't have space or time for the caps and their memories. I kept a few out to wear, nobody recognized me without a cap anyway.

One day, she walked in with a Christmas present, a thank you for being a nice guy. It was a blue baseball cap. She put it on me and I wanted to kiss her. She told me that I looked good and I wanted to kiss her. Almost everyday after that I wanted to kiss her. Every night I was surrounded by my memories of her. I dated other women, and even married another woman, always covered by her baseball cap. When I finally did kiss her, I wasn't wearing a cap, and while that night was an amazing night, I felt slightly guilty, I had cheated on her cap. That blue cap wasn't on my head when I kissed her, I always kind of thought that when I finally did get up the nerve my hat would be there with me, to hold onto another memory for me.

Of course on our wedding day, she wouldn't let me wear a cap, but she did let me wear a tux. What a compromise. When we said our vows she stepped away from the chuppah and grabbed something from under her mother's seat. It was a black baseball cap decorated with white pearl buttons a white ribbon and a bow. The cap was wearing a tux she said, and then she placed it on my head, kissed my cheek and became my wife. On our honeymoon she told me that she wasn't marrying "me" if I wasn't wearing a cap.

A few months later she told me that she thought she was pregnant. A few days later it was a fact, and after that we found out that it was twins, a boy and a girl. I went out and bought two baseball caps, so tiny. I figured its what my mother would have done. I wanted them to have something to remember her by.

As our family grew I took my old caps out of storage. I shared my memories with them and made new memories of my own. I took the kids and eventually my grandkids to baseball games, and we bought caps. It was what my father would have done. Every Father's Day, birthday and Christmas, I was guaranteed at least one cap. It was the running joke that I needed to grow a second and third head to possibly wear all of the caps that I own. I had caps with paint, sequins, markers, decorating them. I got a cap from every team that my family was a part of. Each was different and each was special.

Lorelai and I were blessed with a long life together with Rory, April, our children, our many grandchildren, and our great-grandkids. Each baby was given a cap from us. It was something to remember us by.

I told her that coffee would kill her, I wasn't quite right. When she died I buried her with the baseball cap from our wedding. It was something to remember me by.

We buried my grandfather today. He was a great man. My childhood was one to envy. My granddad used to take me to baseball games and we would eat hot dogs and talk sports. I remember the game where I caught a home run ball, my granddad holding me up so that I could reach to catch the ball. He bought me a baseball cap to celebrate. He was buried next to my grandmother, near the rest of his family in Stars Hollow. He wore a blue baseball cap, so old and worn out, but nobody wondered why he was buried with it. My mother liked to tell me the story. He got that cap before he and my grandma even started dating, that she had given it to him. My granddad loved that cap. He loved all baseball caps. He had like 300 of them, now carefully divided amongst his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Each one has a story, a memory of his life, his family, and his great love. It's nice to have something to remember him by.


End file.
